


Fool for Lesser Things

by jemariel



Series: More Than I Hoped For [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Business major Dean, Friends With Benefits, House Party, M/M, Oral Sex, Photographer Castiel, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Risky sexual behavior (minorly), unfair abuse of Billy Joel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 09:11:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17322140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemariel/pseuds/jemariel
Summary: “I’m not looking for a relationship,” Cas says at last.The panic is quick as a flashbulb all over Dean’s face. “What? Who said — What did — No. Yeah. Yeah, I know that.”Cas closes his eyes. “Let me try that again,” he says. “I’m not cut out for a relationship. But I don’t actually pick people up at parties very often either.”In which Dean and Cas feel more than either of them care to admit.





	Fool for Lesser Things

**Author's Note:**

> As I started piecing these stories together, I kept picturing bits and pieces of my own college experience (which isn't exactly a surprise). I kept picturing my dorms, my library, my classrooms, my campus. And I realized there wasn't any real reason not to set it at my college, so... I did. From this point out, all of the locations in this story are based on [Pacific University](https://www.pacificu.edu/) in Forest Grove, Oregon, though the characters and events, of course, are fictional.
> 
> Something else to note: Dean, in this story, came to college later than most (after Sam was well on his way at Stanford), so he skipped over a lot of the traditional Freshman things like the two-people-in-a-shoebox dorm situation. At Pacific, if you're an older student, you gain a greater degree of autonomy if you choose to live in the [Vandervelden Court Apartments](https://www.pacificu.edu/housingdining/housing/residential-halls/vandervelden-court), which function like dorms, but are really basically four-bedroom two-bath apartments. I hope that clears up any confusion about Dean's "dorm" having amenities like a kitchen, an external door, and his own bedroom. There's a floorplan at that link if you happen to be curious.
> 
> The title, by the way, comes from Billy Joel's [For the Longest Time.](https://youtu.be/_izt7vlJKM0)
> 
> AND FINALLY. **Please heed the recreational drug use tag.** Cas is a (relatively) responsible user and it's nothing life-threatening, but it is explicitly discussed. If you'd like to know exactly which drugs are in use, please check the end notes.
> 
> As always, thanks to my faithful beta reader, [elanor-n-evermind](https://elanor-n-evermind.tumblr.com/). Any remaining mistakes are probably Ao3's fault.

“Hey what happened to your mug?”

Dean puts his phone down on the counter and refocuses on Charlie, who is peering into his cupboard at his paltry collection of coffee cups. “Huh?”

“Your mug? You know, the _one mug_ you had that was big enough for tea?”

“Oh. Uh.” _Shit._ “I gave it to somebody.”

Charlie closes the cupboards and homes in on Dean’s admission. “You gave it away? Who to?”

“Does it matter?” he asks, looking anywhere but at Charlie, wiping at the crumbs and stray garlic paper on his counter. He really should clean better in here.

“Wasn’t that mug, like, the first thing you’d made in years? Yeah, I think it does matter.”

He could lie, but he takes too long in trying to come up with anybody else once Cas’s face floats to the front of his mind, so he just says, “I gave it to Cas,” with a little shrug. As if he could still make light of this.

Charlie squints at him, half confusion, half suspicion. “Cas, as in, Castiel Novak?”

“Yeah.”

“You hooked up with him at my party, right? Like a couple months ago?”

Dean’s face heats up. _Month and a half_ , he doesn’t say. “How did you know about that?”

“You were not exactly subtle, Dean-o. Anyway, I thought he didn’t do relationships?”

“Says who?”

“Uh, everyone?”

“Everyone can be wrong. But that doesn’t matter, cos we’re not dating or anything.”

Charlie just raises her eyebrows at him. Fuck it. She knows him too well for this. Dean sags his elbows onto the counter, frowning at the crumbs.

“I mean. He kept it, so. That can’t be a bad thing, right?” Unless he was just doing it to be polite, but Dean’s been trying not to think like that, or he’ll drive himself nuts.

“How long have you been seeing this guy?” Charlie asks.

“It’s not — We just study together sometimes. At the library, before you get any ideas. And like. I dunno, eat lunch. It’s not a big deal.”

“Uh huh.” Charlie doesn’t look like she believes him, and honestly, Dean doesn’t blame her. “Just be careful, okay? I don’t wanna hafta pull your heartbroken ass out of another gutter.”

Dean glares at her, then throws a piece of garlic at her face.

~*~

“Billy Joel.”

Dean coughs with laughter — definitely not the bong rip he just inhaled. “Seriously?” he wheezes through aching lungs.

Cas glares at him, but it lacks bite. His face is all soft, and his eyes are glazed over, and he’s listing to one side where he sits on his bed. “What’s so funny about Billy Joel?”

Dean shrugs. “I dunno. He’s just such —” he gestures vaguely while Cas sucks the last of the bowl down into the bong water. “White bread square music?”

“He’s a classic,” Cas says, voice deep with smoke, and sets aside the bong. “And it’s your turn.”

Dean’s lungs still ache a little when he sighs, tilting his head back against the frame of Cas’s roommate’s bed. He’s already admitted to liking Bon Jovi, Duran Duran, and Depeche Mode. There’s nothing for it. Cas probably won’t judge him too harshly, anyway. “Lady Gaga.”

Cas busts up laughing. “I knew it!” he crows. “Oh, I knew it! I knew you had some queer boy in you!” And with that he’s face-down on the bed, burying his giggles in the covers.

Lots of responses spin through Dean’s over-active, cannabis-fogged brain. He could bristle at the term ‘queer’ (although hanging out with Charlie is inuring him to that particular terminology). Or he could protest that you don’t have to be gay to like Lady Gaga. He could go full-innuendo about queer boys “in him.” But the response that blurts out of his lips is none of those things.

“What, you didn’t figure that out, like, right away?” And if his heart wasn’t already hammering a hole in his ribs, it would be now. This is the first time either of them have veered anywhere near a mention of their rooftop tryst, and it’s been long enough that it feels like some forbidden secret between them. Like Dean’s breaking some kind of contract by bringing it up, even obliquely.

Cas sobers a little but doesn’t sit up properly just yet. “You’d be surprised how many ‘straight’ boys will go for a rub off when they’re drunk,” he says.

Dean looks down at his fingernails. “Yeah, well. That’s not me,” he says. “I may not have a ton of experience with guys, but —” Cas shifts on the bed, and the rustling of covers gets Dean to look up in time to watch Cas stretch out his shoulders and lower back, arching up off the mattress. His hoodie rides up, and Dean catches a glimpse of pale stomach and bare waist above his jeans, and his tongue stutters. “Uh. But I think I actually prefer guys. A little. Over girls.” He’s proud of himself for finishing the sentence at all, with how his head is swimming.

“So you’re bi?” Castiel asks.

Dean nods, still trying to clear his head.

“What kind of experience?” His voice is lower and rumblier than it was a minute ago, and dammit, how did they go from bullshitting about music to — _this?_ To Dean having to shift a half-mast in his jeans because this beautiful blue-eyed boy is asking about his _experience_.

“Um. Mostly hand jobs, a couple blowjobs,” he says. “Never had a, um. Boyfriend or anything.” And damn, that sounds pathetic. Does Cas think that’s pathetic? The word boyfriend still feels weird coming off his tongue. Time to turn the tables. “What about you, Cas?” he asks.

“I prefer pansexual,” Cas says, gazing at the colorful tapestry on his ceiling and twisting one hand around in the air. “It’s the least restrictive label. If I want to fuck the most gorgeous woman in the world and she happens to have a penis, who am I to complain?”

Dean can’t help his laughter, but he also can’t deny that there’s appeal to that.

~*~

 **Charlie:** HEY you going to the Delta’s Halloween party?

The text comes in while Dean is trying not to fall asleep in his stats class. His head jerks up to the buzz in his pocket. No one else seems to be paying any attention to him — or to the professor, frankly — so he stealthily digs it out of his pocket and fires off a reply under the desk.

 **Dean:** Nah. I got an 8am test the day after.  
**Dean:** Whoever put Halloween on a Thursday this year can suck it.

It’s a few minutes later when the phone buzzes again, and he tries to keep it silent between his palms.

 **Charlie:** Cas will be there

Dean curses the way his pulse leaps in his throat and lets the text sit. Too long, apparently, because Charlie texts again first.

 **Charlie:** Your silence is eloquent today, Dean-o

 **Dean:** STFU I’m in class  
**Dean:** I thought you said going after Cas was a bad idea

 **Charlie:** It is. But you’re gonna mope until you get this out of your system one way or another  
**Charlie:** May as well have some fun while you carry this torch

Dean snorts, and the girl next to him shoots him a dirty look. He sits up straight and tries to pay attention for a minute or two before his attention wanders again, and his phone is back in his hand.

 **Dean:** Doesn’t change the fact that I have a test.  
**Dean:** You’ll have to get laid for me I guess

Charlie’s only response is a chicken emoji.

~*~

Maybe he should have just gone to the party.

He’s been trying to study for hours, but he can’t focus. It’s not the selfies Charlie keeps sending him with increasingly typo laden extollations for him to join the fun. If it were just that, he’d have silenced his phone and knuckled down hours ago.

It’s the knowledge that Cas is there. That Cas is likely intoxicated and grinding on someone else right now. Or maybe they’ve already found some alcove or closet — or rooftop, when Dean really wants to torture himself. Maybe they’re already sharing little nuggets of themselves in the dark. Maybe Cas is having more fun with them than he ever would with Dean.

 _Maybe,_ a voice that sounds suspiciously like Charlie whispers in his brain, _if you’d gone, it could be you he’s having fun with._

It’s not that he doesn’t want it to happen again. He does. He really, really does.

But, okay, yes, he’s a coward. And if he went to the party with expectations like that, of course it wouldn’t happen. Cas would give him the cold shoulder, barely acknowledge him, and he’d have to watch while Cas finds someone else to have a good time with. He doesn’t think he could stomach that.

Especially since, apparently, Cas “doesn’t do relationships.” Whatever that means.

Dean glances at the clock — 10:14 pm — and heaves a huge sigh. He’s barely made it through two pages of his notes and textbook in the three hours he’s been sitting in this bitch-uncomfortable chair. He shifts on the seat; one asscheek is falling asleep. Maybe he should just give up and go to bed.

Instead he swirls his phone around on the desk, listening to the soft swoosh the cover makes on the fake wood. He taps the screen and looks again at his text message thread from Charlie.

 **Charlie:** Having a blast, wywh buddy!  
**Charlie:** Benny is not nearky the beer pong champ u are  
**Charlie:** _[selfie in a long green hat and enormous elf ears, drinking something lurid blue out of a red Solo cup]_ _  
_ **Charlie:** Jsut saw cas he ooks hot 4 a dudde

Dean snorts without humor. If gold-star lesbian Charlie can admit Cas looks hot, Dean would probably sprout a nosebleed at first sight.

Wonder what he’s wearing.

Dean banishes that thought and flips over to his text thread with Cas. There’s nothing new. Cas had linked him to an amusing Halloween-themed video that morning with a few seasonally appropriate emoji, and they’d had a brief mutual chuckle, and that was it. He debates texting him now. Been halfway debating texting him all night, actually, but he knows how stupid that would be. Cas isn’t going to answer his phone _now,_ and that would just leave Dean feeling stupid and heart-sick. And look really pathetic in the morning.

With a huge sigh, Dean puts his phone back down on the desk and picks up a stress ball instead. Kneading it between his palms, he tries to focus on the pages in front of him.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he wakes up with an embarrassing spot of drool wrinkling the page of his text book. Gross. But he only has a second to blink blurrily at the spot before he realizes what actually woke him up — the buzz of his phone on wood. It’s not a text, either; it’s an actual phone call.

From Cas.

Adrenaline shocks through his limbs, and he is instantly awake and fumbling for the phone. “H’llo?” he slurs, his throat and mouth not quite caught up to the rest of him. He clears his throat and tries again. “What’s up?”

“Hiiiii Dean —” Cas’s voice is low and smeary, clearly intoxicated. “I’m — dammit — I’m here to seduce you!”

Dean’s brain blanks. “You’re what?” He finally glances at the clock. It’s almost 2 am.

“You’re in Vandervelden, right? Charlie told me.”

“Oh god, what did Charlie say?” he asks.

“Nothing. Promise.” Yeah, Dean wouldn’t buy that for fifty cents. “I just —” a noise like scuffing on concrete. “You weren't at the party, and I wanted to see you. You gonna let me in or what?”

Wait. Here. That means Cas is — “Hold on a sec,” Dean says, standing up and peeking out his blinds. He doesn’t see anything, or anyone, outside. “Where are you?” he asks.

“I’m in front of your dorm!”

“No, you’re not. Hang on. I’m coming out.”

As quietly as he can, just in case his dormmates are sleeping, Dean makes his way down the hall and out the front door. He spies Cas instantly, hollering into his phone two stairways down.

“Charlie said Vandervelden, by the Boxer, so I’m here, at Vandervelden, by the Boxer, and lemme tell ya — the Boxer is creepy as fuck in the dark. Nevermind, it’s always creepy. But you do have very lovely trees —”

Dean hangs up on his jabbering as he approaches. “Cas, c'mon,” he says, reaching out for his elbow. Cas isn't looking in his direction, and he startles a little, almost over balancing when he turns, barely catching himself before Dean has to do it for him.

Then he's grinning the bright, hazy grin of the cross-faded. “Hello, Dean,” he says. “Happy Halloween.”

Dean snorts, reluctant to take his hand off Cas's arm, only partially out of fear for his balance. “You too,” he says. “Um. Nice, uh. Nice costume.”

Cas's grin can't really get any broader, so it gets somehow deeper instead. “Thank you.”

Most guys going for a costume like this would have just grabbed something cheap in a plastic bag and called themselves Wonder Woman, but this — Dean can't stop staring. And not just because the leather bodice rides low over Cas's muscular chest, and the short-short leather skirt is doing really, _really_ remarkable things for Cas's thighs. It's also just some very impressive costume work. Yeah. That's totally why unsticking his gaze takes monumental effort. “You gotta be freezing though, come on,” he says, tugging on Cas's elbow.

Cas follows, stumbling into Dean's arm and not bothering to stand up straight again. Dean's heart thumps against his ribcage, and he tells himself it's just for Cas's safety when he wraps one arm around him, hand snug on the warm leather of the bodice under his armpit. Cas takes that as an invitation and drapes himself over Dean's shoulders, and Dean tries to pretend his insides aren't doing cartwheels. “Where did you even get this getup?” he asks.

“Hmmmmm,” Cas almost purrs right in his ear, sending goosebumps down Dean’s neck. “A friend does cosplay at conventions,” he says, and the word slurs out like ‘conven- _shuns_.’ “She always lets me borrow things.”

“Well, uh. It looks — great,” Dean says, haltingly. They’re at his door now, and Cas is leaning on him more firmly than ever, breathing into the shell of Dean’s ear. As Dean pushes the door open and pulls his friend inside, he feels Cas nuzzling behind his ear and sucks in a breath.

“You smell good,” Cas hums again.

“Cas, you —”

The rest of Dean’s sentence gets blown from his brain as Cas, with sudden certainty and strength, pushes him against the back of the door and leans in. Breath ghosts over Dean’s lips, yet he can’t get air, because Cas’s blue eyes are _right there_ , and his lips, his hair, and then Cas is kissing him, and Dean feels like he’s swallowed static. Jesus, Cas is _kissing him_ , sloppy and off-the-mark, but with a groan deep in his chest that Dean can feel rumbling right through him. Dean kisses back, half reflex and half crazy desire, hands clenching on Cas’s leather-clad waist.

After a second, Cas pulls back and asks in the hot, fuzzy space between their lips, “Which room is yours?”

Dean points.

Cas’s heat and weight disappears, and Dean stumbles a half-step forward. His eyes track the swinging leather over Cas’s ass — fuck, those thighs are going to kill him — as Cas swerves down the hall toward Dean’s room. It takes him a second, but eventually he follows.

When he pushes his own door open, Cas is bent over his bed, and the sight makes his heart seize sideways, but then walls turn multi-colored, and Dean realizes he was only bent over like that to plug in Dean’s string of Christmas lights. He still averts his eyes from the vision of the leather skirt riding up Cas’s legs all the way up to where Dean can see his —

“So,” _buttons on your underwear,_ he thinks, wildly, inanely. “How was the party?”

Cas makes a sound that Dean can’t decipher, somewhere between a laugh and a snort. “It was a party,” he says. Dean risks a glance back at him. He’s rolled on his back now, swinging one foot off the bed, blinking up at Dean. Dean just stands there like a chump until Cas holds his arms out and mumbles, “C’mere.”

Dean goes.

He probably shouldn’t; Cas is definitely not sober. But he goes. Cas is sprawled all over most of the too-small dorm bed, and his arms are open invitingly, so Dean falls right into the embrace like he was meant to, like he belongs there. It’s nice to pretend for a moment.

Cas clings to him, all long, bare arms and legs and low, filthy noises. Dean braces himself over, careful not to invade his space too much, even as he drowns in Cas’s magnetic undertow. He keeps his eyes open, Cas’s nose and eyelashes magnifying like they’re under a fish-eye lens, until he can’t anymore. Cas kisses like he’s going to hell for it, open and deep and _with intent._ Dean’s arms and belly tremble.

Kissing back for all he’s worth, Dean sinks down to his elbows. He tastes jungle juice and weed, smells stale frat house and cool autumn night. He should put a stop to this, for a lot of reasons, but all those reasons are blown to shreds by the feel of Cas’s broad chest under him, Cas’s thighs squeezing his, the thoughtless little rolls of his hips. Dean tries to think past how little clothing Cas is wearing and how what he is wearing is _leather_ , a leather _skirt_ —

Dean pulls back, needing air. “Shit, Cas,” he whispers. “It’s good to see you.”

Cas humms vaguely, smiling a little with his head tilted back on the quilt. His hands roam over Dean’s body, restless like the rest of him, and then they stop pressed against Dean’s chest. Cas’s head comes up. “Your heart’s beating so fast,” he says. “You nervous?”

“Uh.” Dean pulls back a fraction. “Maybe?”

Cas just — just smiles up at him, and Dean has to close his eyes and kiss him again or he’s going to start feeling something real stupid.

It’s all going swimmingly, Dean’s nervous feelings aside, until Cas tries to roll them over.

The bed is not large. If Cas had tried to roll the other way, maybe it would have been alright, but he chose to roll them toward the sudden edge. It’s a short drop to a sharp landing.

And, apparently, the funniest thing in the world, as far as Cas is concerned.

“Ow,” Dean says pointedly, even though it didn’t really hurt. His ego, maybe.

“I’m — I’m sorry,” Cas manages through his giggling. They’ve landed in a tangle of knees and elbows, and Dean’s shoulder is crunched uncomfortably against the bed frame, but Cas comes back in for a sloppy, awkward kiss. Dean would probably fall back into it, weak as he is, but for the ungainly shifting he has to do to get his shoulder to an okay spot, and as he flops back on the floor and Cas leans over him with a manic-wide grin….

Cas’s pupils are enormous.

Something shifts, falls off center, and Dean presses up on Cas’s chest. “Cas, what — what are you on right now?”

Cas shrugs one shoulder, but his gaze slides off to the side. “LSD. A little bit of molly. It’s fine.” He tries to lean back in, hands rubbing up and down Dean’s chest in a focused, fixated way that has Dean’s stomach squirming into a knot. He wiggles out from under him.

“Dude.”

Cas’s smile falls, and his brow pinches down. “What?”

Dean swallows hard. There’s a part of him that will probably regret this forever, but — “I can’t. Not if you’re all — altered.”

Cas groans like Dean is being horrendously tedious. “You’re not turning into a narc on me, are you?”

“No, look, I don’t care what you do, I just —” something sour is trying to crawl up Dean’s throat. “And if I were on all that stuff too, maybe it would be — I dunno, it’s different, but I can’t just — It’d be taking advantage.”

Cas squints at him, a pout starting to form. “Such a gentleman.” Somehow it doesn’t sound like a compliment.

Dean’s face feels hot. “Sorry.” He’s not sure why he’s apologizing for trying to protect Cas, but, well. There it is. “Rain check?” he tries with half a grin.

Cas doesn’t respond in words. He huffs and slides his hands up over his shoulders, petting Dean’s bedspread with his eyes closed, pent up energy clear in every muscle of his body. He’s practically vibrating.

“Couldn’t you, uh —” Shit, Dean really doesn’t want to ask this question. Doesn’t want to put this idea into Cas’s head. “Why didn’t you just find someone at the party, if you were so hard-up?”

“S’not as easy as that,” Cas sighs, quiet, distracted.

“I mean,” Dean shrugs. “You found me. That one time.”

Cas opens his eyes again to stare straight at Dean. “Exactly.”

Dean’s not sure what that even means, much less how to respond. When he doesn’t, Cas goes back to petting the bedspread. Then moves on to petting his own leather bodice and skirt _and what’s under the skirt,_ and Dean’s heart stutters to a stop.

“D’you —” he keeps his eyes firmly on his closet door and has to swallow, hard. “Do you want me to walk you back to your dorm?”

Cas shakes his head, rolling the back of his skull on the side of the mattress. “Can’t. Gabriel called dibs on the room tonight.”

Dean snorts. Figures. He’s really, really glad he never had to deal with the whole sharing-a-room business. “If you just needed a place to crash, you coulda said that.” There’s a loose thread in the carpet. Dean picks at it.

“That’s not why I’m here, Dean.”

Fuck, Cas’s voice is all low in his chest, and it scrapes like fingernails down Dean’s skin. “Yeah, well. It’s what you got. C’mon.” Dean hauls himself to his feet, then offers Cas a hand. He’s unsteady deadweight and looks a little disconcerted to find himself vertical once Dean’s pulled him up. “You can borrow some PJs.”

It takes every ounce of willpower Dean has in him not to stare when Cas starts stripping down right there in the middle of his bedroom. It takes even more, when Dean let _s_ himself look again, not to wrap Cas up in his arms, because Dean’s ancient, sleep-soft Motorhead T-shirt stretches a bit across Cas’s chest and his flannel pajama pants sit just right at the top curve of his ass. Dean’s always been a sucker for girls wearing his clothes; apparently, that’s true for guys too. This is not helping his crush _at all._

Then he has more pressing concerns. Like the fact that Cas is crawling into his bed.

“Wait, uh —” he stutters. “I was kinda thinking —” the couch. He was thinking Cas would sleep on the couch. But instead, Cas is burrowing into his umade blankets, blinking owlishly up at him and hugging his pillow, and Dean can feel a little melty grin on his cheeks. “Nevermind.” He doesn’t really have spare blankets around, anyway.

“I might not be able to sleep for a while,” Cas says, “But I —” his eyes close, he swallows hard and shivers again. “I promise I won’t impugn your honor.”

Ignoring the way his heart hammers against his breastbone, Dean turns off the lights — Cas is briefly entranced by the colors on the walls from the Christmas lights until Dean unplugs those too and the room goes dark — then crawls in after Cas. Two grown men in a dorm-sized twin makes for cozy quarters, but Cas doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, he sighs out some of his tension as Dean wriggles down, getting comfy on his back, so close to the edge of the bed his elbow tries to fall off. Then Cas throws an arm over his chest and pulls. “I won’t bite,” he says, quiet.

Dean lets himself scoot closer until his shoulder is pressed against Cas’s chest and his breathing is a soft puff against his ear. Goosebumps pop up there, and even though he tries his hardest not to, he turns his head to glance at Cas.

He’s staring. His eyes catch moonlight, a crackle of silence.

“You just gonna watch me try to sleep all night?” Dean asks, not quite a whisper.

Cas shrugs one shoulder. “I’ll drift off eventually,” he says. “Acid is almost as much fun in the dark as it is in the light.”

It seems like a non-sequitur, but when Dean looks at him again, really takes in the way he’s staring into nothing, eyes darting from Dean’s face to the walls around them and back, it isn’t really. “Are you, like, seeing things right now?” he asks, a bit wary.

Cas refocuses on him. “Have you ever done it?”

Dean shakes his head. “Just weed and booze for me.” Too much of the latter, sometimes, but he doesn’t need to bring that up.

A gentle rumbling hum from Cas’s chest straight into Dean’s arm, like a cat purring, has Dean pressing just a little bit closer. “It’s not seeing things that aren’t there, exactly,” he says after a moment. “Things that are there are… better. Brighter. Sharper. It’s like a filter you can put over your brain, or — or maybe it’s that you can turn the filtering off and really _see._ Anything seems possible. Probable, even, and you feel like you can see all of it happen.” Cas sighs, tingling on Dean’s skin.

“Have you tried taking pictures while — y’know?”

Cas shakes his head. “It would be a waste. I’d take a thousand stupid pictures of a blank wall.” Dean smiles a bit at that, and Cas lets out something too low and too soft to be a giggle, squeezes tighter with the arm across Dean’s chest. “I bet it would be amazing for sculpting though.”

The warm, sleepy softness Dean was starting to feel freezes up solid. “I—”

“Shh, relax. I’m not suggesting you do anything you’re not comfortable with,” Cas says, then he draws in a big breath and pulls his arm back into himself. Dean misses the warmth instantly. When he looks, Cas is pressing both hands tightly over his face.

“Hey, are you —”

“I’m fine.” It comes out sharp, like the snap of a rubber band. Dean resettles on his pillow.

He’s almost managed to calm down enough to doze off when Cas’s hand crawls back over his chest to rest in the center, right over his breastbone, and Dean’s heart stumbles back to a racing stride. Cas doesn’t say anything, though. Just presses down on Dean’s sternum like he’s trying to calm the chaos inside. Like he can feel or sense all of Dean’s turbulence and wants to force it into stillness. It feels good. Dean wants to let him.

“I like you, Dean,” Cas whispers into the darkness.

Dean swallows on a dry throat, then swallows again. “Uh.”

“Thank you for letting me stay.”

Dean turns his head again, and somehow Cas is closer still, his eyes wider and his lips soft, slightly open. “S-sure thing.”

Slowly, surely, Cas’s hand slides up Dean’s chest, making room for a breath as it lightens up on his sternum, then driving it right back out of his lungs as his fingertips find the top of Dean’s collar, tracing the skin there. Up and over Dean’s neck to his ear, down his scruffy jaw to his chin, skipping his lips to tap the tip of his nose twice.

“Now go to sleep,” Cas orders, abruptly alert. “You have a test in the morning.” And he flops over onto his other side, shoulder jostling into Dean’s briefly before he settles facing the wall.

Not sure what just happened, Dean holds onto his spring-coil tension for a few quick heartbeats. Cas’s back may as well be the wall for all he’s getting from him, except the wall doesn’t breathe or sigh, doesn’t radiate heat, doesn’t shiver now and then with the ebbing flood of an altered mental state. Dean’s never wanted to wrap his arms around the wall and hold on tight.

Slowly, Dean lets out all the breaths he’s been holding. Eventually, he sleeps.

~*~

It’s cold, and he’s in someone else’s bed.

Waking up is difficult on the best of days, but today Cas’s eyes want to stick shut and he aches from head to toe. There’s no other body in the bed, so Cas rolls himself into a burrito in the blankets and works his way through his vividly fuzzy memories of last night.

Whoever had the bright idea of tripping on Halloween should be taken out back for batting practice. Except Cas is pretty sure it was his own stupid idea.

And Dean hadn’t even been there. Cas had been hoping.

Dean. Gluey eyes snap open.

For a heart-pounding moment, Cas searches his memories for skin, scents, sense-memory, terrified to have forgotten… but. No. He’s in pajamas — borrowed pajamas, but fully dressed — and the bedsheets are rumpled, but not in a way that suggests extra curricular activities. Right. Because Dean had gotten all weird when he’d found out that Cas was — altered.

Before that, though.

Before that, he’d seemed entirely on board. Cas relaxes back into the pillows deliberately, letting those memories unwind on the insides of his eyelids.

Cas is an idiot.

Pulling the blankets tighter, he dozes a little, meditating on his own stupidity.

When the door opens some time later, he startles awake and becomes newly aware of the dryness of his eyes, his mouth, the ache in every muscle. Jesus, acid takes it out of him.

But Dean is here, now, carrying a greasy bag of McDonald’s and a half-nervous grin. “Hey,” he says. “Glad you’re still here.”

Cas plops his ear back down on the pillow. “I haven’t been awake very long,” he says, voice rough, hoarse. “Do you have coffee?”

Dean nods, but then hands Cas a bottle of Gatorade. “That first,” he says.

Cas squints as if he could smite Dean where he stands, but he takes the sports drink. It's Fruit Punch. Tolerable. And he takes the paper-wrapped Egg McMuffin too, the smell of which hits his empty stomach like a suckerpunch. He’s not sure if he’s ravenous or about to be ill, but he unwraps the thing and takes a tentative bite anyway.

Ravenous it is.

“Bon appetit,” Dean says, miming a toast with his McMuffin.

It’s a quiet breakfast, Dean sitting at his desk and Cas still half-rolled up in blankets, pacing out the meal between slow sips of Gatorade. Cas is halfway through before he realizes that Dean is trying not to stare.

“I’m sane again, if that’s what you were wondering,” he says.

“What?” Damn, but Dean’s cute when he blushes. “Oh. Uh. No, that’s not what I was —”

“Then what were you wondering?”

“It’s not important,” Dean insists, now beet red and looking anywhere but at Cas. A dopey grin spreads over Cas’s face, and he shoves another bite of McMuffin in his mouth to stopper it.

A few more minutes of quiet, and then Cas asks, “How’d your test go?”

“How’d you even know about that?” Dean asks.

“Charlie told me. I asked her if you were coming.” Which doesn’t have to mean anything. Cas rolls the edge of the paper wrapping between his fingers. It doesn’t.

“Oh.” Dean sets down his breakfast for a drink of water. “Well, it didn’t go great. I didn’t really get much studying done last night.”

Something hot crawls up Cas’s throat, and he’s suddenly not sure breakfast was a good idea. “I’m sorry,” he manages. “I wasn’t thinking straight when I — I mean. I didn’t mean to interrupt. Or keep you awake at two in the morning.”

“It wasn’t your fault. I shoulda just gone to the damn party.” Dean wads up the greasy paper into a ball and tosses it in the trash. “You wanted coffee, right?”

He leaves the room before Cas can even consider whether or not to follow, so he finishes his breakfast in slow nibbles in deference to his tender stomach, then throws his own paper at the trash can. He misses.

Dean’s head appears in the hall, what little of it Cas can see through the open door. “Sugar? Milk?”

“Neither.”

The flash of Dean’s grin is briefly blinding. “That’s good, because I don’t have either.” And then he’s gone again.

Cas draws his knees up to his chest. He should probably go. But he doesn’t move, and soon Dean is pressing a hot cup of coffee into his hands, so he has no choice but to sip at it gingerly.

Dean is watching him again. This time, Cas stays quiet and stares into his cup.

“So, uh.”

Cas hates conversations that start like that.

“Why’d you really come over here last night?” Dean’s voice is small, soft, like he thinks if he says it gently enough the words won’t actually fall on Cas’s ears.

Cas takes another sip of coffee, frowning, thinking. “I thought I made that obvious.”

Looking down, Dean picks at a fingernail and says nothing.

Finally, Cas can’t take it anymore. He struggles his legs out of the blankets and swings them over the edge of the bed. “Look, if you’re trying to figure out how to let me down gently, just say it. It’s better than waiting.”

“What? No!” Dean’s face is guileless, wide-eyed and pinch-browed and — “I just — why’d you come _here?_ Y’know?” Cas freezes with his feet halfway to the floor, but Dean sucks in a big breath and continues. “It’s just that — you could’ve probably gone home with anybody you wanted. I don’t get why you’d —” he trails off with loose gestures at his room, at himself, then lets them drop with a heavy sigh.

Slowly, treading carefully, Cas places one foot and then the other on the cold carpet. Sets his coffee on the desk. Leans his elbows on his knees, eye to eye with Dean, even though Dean isn’t looking at him. He watches Dean for a long moment, watches him fidget and glance to and fro from Cas’s face. “I’m not looking for a relationship,” Cas says at last.

The panic is quick as a flashbulb all over Dean’s face. “What? Who said — What did — No. Yeah. Yeah, I know that.”

Cas closes his eyes. “Let me try that again,” he says. “I’m not cut out for a relationship. But I don’t actually pick people up at parties very often either.”

That throws Dean for a loop, it seems. He’s looking at him again, at least, finally, lips slack in a small o. “Oh. Oh-kay.” It comes off his tongue slowly, the pause between one shoe and the other.

Cas closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at Dean when he says, “My most common arrangement is on the ‘friends with benefits’ level, and I was hoping that — uh. Well, I was hoping.” Dean’s flannel is old and pilly, rough on his palms, but he rubs his hands over his knees anyway. His heart skips and trips along like a merry-go-round.

“You were hoping?” Dean’s voice is a notch lower, and Cas looks up.

“Yes, I was.” He pauses, watching Dean’s face, watching him absorb what Cas is saying. “I meant what I said last night, Dean. I like you. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that.” It will be, Cas knows from experience. But it’s always nice to pretend at first.

Dean’s slow, shy grin is like a silvery sunshine behind gray clouds. “Seriously?”

Cas nods, his own smile curving up to bask in Dean’s light. “If you want.”

“Well, uh. Yeah. I guess we could do that.” There’s optimism in his voice again, and Cas takes the leap.

“Now?” It’s worth it, even if only for the way Dean’s eyes pop and his jaw drops open.

“Uh. You mean, uh —”

Cas grins a cockiness he only halfway feels. “I’m going to have to get naked to leave here anyway,” he says, and leans back on his elbows, showing off. Watching Dean’s wide-round eyes sweep down over his chest and stomach, his spread thighs. There’s heat to his gaze, to the twitch of his lips, and Cas widens his knees a little further just because he feels like it.

It’s a thrilling rush when Dean finally slips off his chair to knee-walk closer, insinuating himself between Cas’s legs. “Benefits, huh?” he says. Cas shivers as his hands slide up the outside of his thighs, his hips, fingertips stopping short just under the hem of the T-shirt. He tries to will them farther. “What kind of benefits are we talkin’ here?”

Cas closes his eyes against the heat of that smile. God. Somehow he's gone from zero to sixty with one slow press of hands. “Do you need a road map? I can give you a road map.” He'll draw fucking arrows on his skin in Sharpie if it will get Dean to suck him off.

“No, I think I can find my way around.” Dean's fingers are growing restless, but still hesitant, plucking at the hem of the T-shirt, making tiny circles. “But. Can I kiss you?”

Cas's eyes fly open. “Yes. Please.”

A quick, awkward shuffle, and Dean is over him on the bed, knees pushing Cas's legs wider. Cas's pulse quickens even before Dean's breath, his lips, his eyelashes so close, drive thought from Cas's brain. The world tilts — maybe it's a tail end of his trip, or maybe it's just Dean, but either way, Cas's world rocks a little off its axis and he groans against the weight of Dean. And Dean — Dean collapses on him with an answering sound, an echo, and Cas can feel the thunder of his heartbeat. _Yes._

It's different, now, from that night on the roof. There had been none of this trembling under his ribs that night. They hadn't asked if kissing was permissible, they’d just assumed certain liberties were up for the taking. Now — now they know each other as they didn't before. Now, there’s the thrill of a different kind of risk, ephemeral and potent. Potentially addictive.

It doesn't take more than a few slow rolls of their hips together before they are both getting hard and lining up together just so. Dean breaks the kiss with a whimper and a wince and reaches down to shift himself in his jeans, knuckles rubbing incidentally against Cas's cock as he does so. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “Little — little uncomfortable.”

Dean almost over-balances when Cas tugs at his shirt and the long sleeves catch on his wrists, which leads to a bout of giggling. Cas hides his snickers in Dean's neck, and oh, that hitch in Dean's breath is eloquent. Cas opens his mouth and explores, finding new and exciting noises under Dean's ear, down the length, in the hollow of his collarbone. “Sensitive here?” he breathes into the warm cup of Dean's throat.

Dean nods, quick and certain.

Cas grins, teeth bared, then takes some skin between them and sucks just once, nips, just enough to ignite Dean’s stuttering breath.

“Shit, Cas,” Dean gasps, and his arms come around Cas's shoulders, holding tight, a heavy press. From there it’s all roving hands, half-closed eyes, lips parted on panting breaths. “I like you in my shirt,” Dean admits, one hand shifting the fabric around over Cas’s belly.

Cas raises one eyebrow at him. “Too bad,” he says, and halfway sits up to tug the shirt off over his head. Then they’re kissing again, somehow, and Cas is wiggling out of the flannel bottoms, and Dean wrenches away to look down at him, let him kick his way naked —

“Shit,” he says again, and then he’s sliding, sliding, down between Cas’s parted thighs, and Cas flexes up to meet him halfway —

“Mother— _fucker_ —” Cas groans as Dean swirls just the tip of his tongue over the head of his dick.

“Mmhmm. Seems pretty beneficial to me,” Dean says, breath little puffs over where Cas is sensitive, swelling.

Cas glares down at Dean’s smirk and has to twist his fingers in the sheets to stop himself from grabbing Dean by the hair and pushing his cock between those plush, shining lips. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” he says, trying to relax into the pillows and just enjoy.

“C’mon, that was hilarious,” Dean says, but then he focuses on the task at hand. He takes Cas between his palms, massaging gently, and Cas lets his eyes fall shut and warmth suffuse through his groin. Then Dean’s tongue starts tracing a cool, damp line up from his root to his head, gradually undoing all the relaxing Cas has tried to do. Tension and pleasure ratchet up his spine; he can’t help twitching. Especially not when Dean’s breath and lips find the spot just under the head and his hips flick —

“Yeah, found a good spot,” Dean murmurs with a grin, and that’s the end of Cas’s control. He twines his fingers through Dean’s hair and pulls down, pushes up into his wet heat. Dean’s eyes go wide and then fall closed, and Cas watches the little crease of concentration in his brow as he swallows Cas’s cock right down.

“Fuck,” Cas groans. Then he lets go. “Sorry. That was —”

Without lifting his head more than a fraction of an inch, Dean reaches for Cas’s wrist and puts his hand back on his head. Cas feels, through his fingers and around his dick, a small nod.

 _Yes._ It rears up, rockets up Cas’s spine, and he cups Dean’s skull with both hands, holding him gently in place as he gets his feet on the bed for leverage. Then thrusts. And Dean _groans_ around him, lips flushed dark pink and slick with spit as Cas works his cock between them, and his tongue is wicked on his flesh. Cas pushes until he feels himself start to slip into Dean’s throat, and he doesn’t go farther until Dean blinks up and fucking _opens_ for him.

That’s it, that’s fucking _it._ Cas barely has time to shove at Dean’s shoulder and whine his name in warning before he seizes with pleasure. Legs trembling, clamped around Dean’s shoulders and he’s — he’s still in Dean’s mouth. He can feel Dean’s throat working to swallow and _Jesus —_

When it’s over, he sags into the pillow, drained and content with Dean’s warm presence between his legs. He cracks one eye open and spies Dean’s smug grin. He grins back.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Dean shrugs. “I don’t mind.”

Cas lets his eyes fall closed and then pulls weakly at Dean. He clambers up into Cas’s embrace, a satisfying weight, a press of skin and muscle, expanding into each other as they breathe. Cas tastes himself on Dean’s lips.

It’s luxurious, the long planes of skin under his hands, scratching lines down Dean’s back, but Cas can feel Dean slowly stirring his denim-trapped erection into the crook of his hip. He lets himself bask for a few more moments before sliding his hands farther, slipping them under the layers of Dean’s jeans and boxers. There’s a catch in Dean’s breath as his hips stutter; Cas pulls him closer, slowly works his jeans down his hips until Dean pulls back.

“Sorry, my —” and Cas tries not to laugh at the sight of his boxers and jeans caught on his dick.

“Here,” he murmurs, lips stretching on a smile that’s softer than the laugh would have been. “Let me —”

Dean's body strains into Cas's touch as he pulls him free.

“Lie back,” Cas murmurs.

Dean is wide-eyed, blinking, and his throat works on a swallow. But he obeys, trading spots with Cas on the pillows and letting Cas shuck his jeans completely.

Now they’re both naked, and Cas takes his moment to enjoy the view. He pets up and down Dean’s thighs with his fingertips, feeling them twitch at the touch. Feeling Dean’s heat the closer he gets to his groin, to his thick cock where it arches up to his belly. Watching him jerk when Cas ghosts a touch over his balls, rolling them. “Do you like this?” he asks, voice low. He’s prepared to take his time, as much time as Dean will give him.

“Uh — yeah,” Dean breathes. “Having my balls played with? Yeah.”

“How hard?”

Dean swallows visibly again, and he rasps out, “Uh. Harder than that.”

Cas squeezes gently. Dean sucks in a breath, and his legs twitch apart, so Cas does it again. Tugs on them, and Dean squirms. Leans forward while he’s distracted and breathes hot up the underside of his cock.

“Ohfuck —” And then he’s arching up, blood-hot and hard against Cas’s lips. Cas chuckles into the sudden contact and opens his mouth, content to leave the teasing behind. Lips first, then tongue, and then he’s working the base in his fist while bobbing his head, pressing deep, right to the root. A quick glance up, and he sees Dean gripping the frame of his bed, and he wonders for a brief moment if he’d like to pull against the confines of rope or cuffs. His muscles straining beautifully, strength beholden, and —

A sudden snap, Dean’s stomach muscles seizing to pull him almost double over Cas’s head, and Cas is choking on the sudden warm flood in his throat. He recovers quickly though, swallowing fast as he slows his motions, sucking Dean dry.

“S-sorry,” Dean gasps. “Sorry. I — that was, uh. Came on kinda quick.” He’s blinking up at the ceiling and trying to laugh it off, but Cas can see the blush on his cheeks.

And it’s fine. It’s really, really fine. “It’s okay,” he says. Dean breathes in deep through the aftershocks and pulls a pillow over his face. Cas lets him hide.

There’s not really enough room on the bed for Cas to lay down beside him right now, so he props himself up against the wall. His ankles dangle off the side of the bed, their legs criss-crossing over each other in a sweaty tangle. Neither of them says anything for a long moment, bodies cooling like combustion engines, in little pings and sighs. Cas wishes he’d brought some weed.

Which reminds him.

“It’s going to be an interesting walk back to my dorm,” he says.

Dean removes the pillow from his face, squinting up at him. “What? Oh — you mean as Wonder Woman?”

Cas shrugs. “I won’t be the only one.”

“Nah, dude,” Dean sits up with a grunt, stretching his back, shifting his legs out from under Cas’s. “You can borrow some clothes if you want.”

“Is that just your excuse to dress me in your band T-shirts again?”

Dean glances up at him and then away, pink glowing in his cheeks again. “Uh. I mean, not — not on purpose.”

“Your shirts are very comfortable,” Cas says. “Even if you do have appalling taste in music.”

Dean snorts. “Whatever, Mister Billy Joel.”

This time, when they end up on the floor, they take most of the bedding with them, and there is considerably more laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> Drugs in play in this story are: Cannabis, acid/LSD, and molly/MDMA (the primary ingredient in Ecstasy).
> 
> If you're curious what that "Boxer" is, well...... 
> 
> [](https://www.flickr.com/photos/kamui4u/207697846/in/pool-pacificuniversity/)  
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Don't ask me what it is. I walked past that thing multiple times every day for 3 years and I still have no idea.
> 
> If you'd like, come check me out on [tumblr](https://jemariel.tumblr.com/) or pillowfort (not very active there yet but I'm working on it). Kudos and comments are always, always, _**always**_ appreciated. You can reblog [this story itself](https://jemariel.tumblr.com/post/181765362556/new-fic) or the [Series Master Post](https://jemariel.tumblr.com/post/181956602266/more-than-i-hoped-for-on-ao3-rating-mostly) if you feel so inclined.
> 
> Thanks for reading!!


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